हरी ॐ
Dear Parents,
This week was a special one! Our bright and cheerful 5th graders were going to do the Aarti and Pledge. Since most of them were confident, we decided to keep the last few minutes to go over the order. We had a quiz scheduled, but didn't have time to do it. It will be given to the students this coming week. It is on Gurudev, Sw. Chinmayananda!
Update:
** Opening Prayers: Śānthi mantra, Vakrathunda mahākāya, Sarasvati namastubhyam, Guru Brahmā, Buddhir Balam. We also started to do Meditation for 2 minutes to calm down and get ready for the class.
** Ganesha Pancharatnam: Verse 1, 2, 3 were practiced.
** Geeta Chanting - This week, we practiced verses 41 - 48, repeating every verse twice. We request all the kids to listen and practice everyday
** Mahabharata - Since the recap from the previous week was fairly fresh in their minds, we started with Ekalavya's story. The concept of caste was discussed, and how it has devolved into something very discriminatory in our present day. Guru Bhakti was also brought into the conversation, and the lengths to which one will go to offer
Gurudakshina.
The next topic was Radheya - his search for a teacher, his 'low birth' preventing an education, and the subsequent curses from Sage Bhargava and the Brahmin(whose cow he accidentally killed). The question raised in this topic was quite interesting, 'why did one wrong doing(on Radheya's part) nullify all his good deeds, warranting a curse from Sage Bhargava?'
We went back to the Princes of Hastinapura, the tournament to showcase their talents, Radheya's challenge to Arjuna, Duryodhana's compassion towards the charioteer's son and Radheya(Karna) being given the Throne of Anga. Was Duryodhana's "compassion" true, or just a ploy to anger the Pandavas? The discussion continues...
We will be having our grade performance in January. Practices for that will start very soon...
Pranāms,
Vandana and Nivedita
